nt solemn sincerity he
counsels "Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil
from thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity."

[1] The current interpretation of this clause, that it speaks of the
future state of man after death, seems hardly in keeping with the
context, and certainly not at all in keeping with the character and
scope of the book. Ecclesiastes everywhere confesses the strict
limitation of his knowledge to the present scene. This is the cause of
his deepest groanings that he cannot pierce beyond it; and it would be
entirely contrary for him here, in this single instance, to assume to
pronounce authoritatively of the nature of that place or state of which
he says he knows nothing.

CHAPTER XII.

Our last chapter concluded with the words, "For childhood and youth are
vanity": that is, childhood proves the emptiness of all "beneath the
sun," as well as old age. The heart of the child has the same
needs--the same capacity in kind--as that of the aged. _It needs God_.
Unless it knows Him, and His love is there, it is empty; and, in its
fleeting character, childhood proves its vanity. But this makes us
quite sure that if childhood can feel the need, then God has, in His
wide grace, _met the need_; nor is that early life to be debarred from
the provision that He has made for it. There are then the same
_possibilities_ of filling the heart and life of the young child with
that divine love that fills every void, and turns the cry of "Vanity"
into the Song of Praise: "Yea, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
Thou hast perfected praise."

But our writer is by no means able thus to touch any chord in the young
heart that shall vibrate with the music of praise. Such as he has,
however, he gives us: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."

This counsel must not be separated from the context. It is based
absolutely and altogether on what has now been discerned: for not only
is our writer a man of the acutest intelligence, but he evidently
possesses the highest qualities of moral courage. He shirks no
question, closes his eyes to no fact, and least of all to that awful
fact of man's compulsory departure from this scene which is called
"death." But following on, he has found that even this cannot possibly
be all; there must be a _judgment_ that shall follow th